we're tackling the latest headlines. immigration reform marquez for public and. democratic. and political matters. today on politics. welcome to politics larry king and with us today from washington congressman aaron schock from six years ago he represents the eighteenth district of illinois he currently serves on the highly coveted house committee on ways and means he's the chief that's the chief tax writing committee and the house of representatives and we go back our member of bradley university and oriya illinois good to have you

with us aaron thanks for having me on before we get into specifics in this overall philosophical argument security versus privacy. where do you stand look i think what's difficult is it's not black and white at the end of the day after september eleventh we weren't sure when the next strike was going to come we weren't sure what tools are some national security team needed to keep us safe and at the end of the day the congress before i got here decided that they were going to err on the side of safety and give additional tools tools that had never been given to prior administrations to try and keep americans safe all while understanding that these would be used to target suspected terrorists people that were suspected to eventually do us harm or potentially do us harm both the bush administration and the obama administration both to reassure congress and the american people that these tools would never be used to compile information or go after everyday

ordinary american citizens and i think what the latest development has caused a shiver down the spine of americans is that they are now finding out that in fact ordinary americans information everything from photos they're looking at to their e-mail content to the searches that they're making are all being compiled in a database here in washington d.c. yes looking for trends that perhaps might interest our national security team but also the fear of course is that some rogue agent within one of these a security teams could look up your information and that private information could then be made public violating some of the most basic freedoms that we've enjoyed throughout our two hundred years and as an american in that regard you called mr snowden. said you said he committed treason that's correct he made a oath when he got clearance to get some of the most sensitive information about

how we go after a suspected terrorist we go after suspected criminals who wish to do our country harm and he made an oath to this country he wasn't just a random employee. when you violate that oath to our country you commit treason against this country and so look i don't think the ends justify the means no matter how outrageous the acts of the security agencies that congress may want to take away some of these tools or limit some of these tools or have some reaction to what we've learned how he did it and how he went about it was completely wrong there are whistleblower protections within these agencies and within the rule of law were other whistleblowers have come forward and said hey i don't think this is right without letting the international community and certainly those who don't like us know how we go about fighting terror such disparate people was glenn beck and michael moore are calling him a hero congressman ron paul says snowden has done

a great service by telling the truth about the surveillance program he also said that obama should send him a thank you letter how would you respond to that. well i just disagree i mean let's face it the president outlined last week that these tools that they've been given by congress have been used to thwart real attempted attacks against our country you can't downplay saved lives as a result of these tools that have been given to the administration. and this is bipartisan you have not only the president but you have john mccain on the republican side kelly a united states senator republican as well from new hampshire you have mike rogers the chairman of the house intelligence committee a republican from michigan all saying that they know who get classified briefings that these tools have been used this process has been used to thwart real terrorists who have attempted to attack our country so those tools are now gone

this process is no longer any good now that these. potential criminals know how we go about tracking them down were you shocked did you have some knowledge that this was going on this prism thing or were you shocked yeah i was we go we get classified briefings every so often in congress and i will tell you that while i can't talk about a lot of the information i will just simply say that repeatedly the administration assured us that the additional powers we were giving them would only be used against suspected terrorists and suspected people who could do us harm you know the president's response i think was what really concerned me as well as he said you know if you haven't done anything wrong you don't have anything to fear all the while we've got the scandal in the i.r.s. going on where people weren't doing things wrong except for rogue agents in the i.r.s. who are discriminating against people so it only takes a few bad actors within a government to be able to use these tools if the information's been gathered

against people so congressman this comes down to a matter of trust why why should we trust the government when it goes this be a good. sure obama or republican or democrat what you're saying is it requires us to trust that's right and i think this gives us pause now as we go forward while the fires the court and the. the patriot act were recently i think that you're going to see new legislation introduced to tighten up some of the latitude it was given and perhaps maybe not as much trust to coin a phrase trust but verify that in fact these tools are only being used against those who are suspected terrorists or people who wish to do us harm i realize this is a different era and everything changed on nine eleven but one of the fears that people have if you look back congressman in one thousand nine hundred thirty six hitler made a speech once in germany and said when he did away with the warrants he said if you

have nothing to fear why should you be afraid if we search your house and they had a very low crime rate in germany and the people bought that well we have nothing to fear let them search his house there is a day though it's a different time now but don't you fear that danger absolutely and not only that but i think look we are living in a very technologically. technological society now and the the flow of information really with the stroke of a few keys in a net or button much of your life from information on your credit card and where you buy your goods to who you communicate with out of line to the information in your smartphone that that information is very sensitive to who you are as a human being and your privacy and those rules the great thing about our country is that regardless of your faith regardless of your political beliefs regardless of

decisions you make in your personal life we believe in that that liberty that freedom and the minute somebody can start tracking you and and knows all of that personal information about you is when you really start to give up the freedoms that have made our country so great and certainly when you have bad actors in government as we've seen just recently in some of the agencies. the more government knows about you the more they have their fingers on what you do the more harm that they can also because you it's very scary how do you think the president is handling this well i you know i try and give the credit to the president when i can but i will tell you regards to the n.s.a. i think he is appropriately outlined the fact that these tools have been used to go after suspected terrorists and to point out the fact that the tools have been used to thwart real efforts against our country but i also think he has some work to do

to shore up the rhetoric with the reality in other words the rhetoric coming from the administration was we will never use this information to compile and to compile data on normal americans and the reality is that was done and so it's not only a credibility problem with the american people it's certainly a credibility problem with congress who was briefed repeatedly and told that that was not the case certainly with the other. scandals i don't know if you want to get into the i.r.s. symbols others but that it is. well look the president i think has has not done a very good job of rooting out the corruption within the i.r.s. they basically asked for the i.r.s. commissioner's resignation after re found out that the i.r.s. had targeted over three hundred conservative leaning groups as identified by the inspector general within the treasury department and the president said we're getting rid of the inspector we're getting rid of the i.r.s. commissioner and so all is well this is simply

a few rogue agents in cincinnati and the white house knew nothing about it since that time nearly two weeks ago we've learned that the white house chief counsel was briefed about a year ago we've learned that the white house chief of staff was briefed about a year ago we've learned that the iris commissioner in the last four years visited the white house over one hundred thirty times which is two to three times more than any other cabinet member and more than any other i.r.s. commissioner in the history of our country and we've learned that this wasn't a case of just rogue agents in cincinnati last week at the ways and means committee we learned that the people in the pacific coast region offices in california texas iowa were being discriminated as well and we learned from the witnesses last week that some of the i.r.s. agents in cincinnati were calling back to headquarters in washington d.c. looking for guidance from their superiors so just the ways and means committee in two weeks has learned this isn't an isolated incidents in ohio and so then it goes

back to the original statement by the president which is it was an isolated incident as we know that's not the case so they're not as engaged as they should have to root out this for option within the i.r.s. well the within line here are you saying you think the president was told him is lying doulas or you think they just didn't tell him well i don't know i mean what i know is that when the when when the president addressed the country he said they were not aware of it now who they were i have no way. but if the if i were the present united states i would say if he didn't know i didn't know but my chief of staff and my white house counsel knew the president says that they've looked into us and it was only a few rogue agents in ohio two weeks later we find out it's rogue agents all over in the pacific coast region clearly some people in washington d.c. as well as ohio so i don't know whether the president is just getting bad information from his advisors that could potentially be the case i not going to

claim the present. you know or knew about it until i know that to be the fact what i know is what the president told us two weeks ago is not the facts as we know them today two weeks later would you think that all political organizations that as tax relief should be questioned. was what i think is that there should be room uniform standards and equal protection under the laws so absolutely we should ask the same questions of conservative groups and liberal groups and clearly that was the problem here is that they weren't some of the liberal leaning groups were getting their approval on the average of thirty to sixty days and and these three hundred conservative groups nearly two hundred of them have yet to get approval three years later and they were asked questions is as ridiculous as you know tell me the content of your members prayers sign affidavits that your members of your members of your board won't ever run for office again violations of their constitutional

right simply because they were a faith based organization or had a certain conservative ideology i don't think anybody whether it's a liberal or conservative in congress can justify that kind of behavior from a bureaucrat and we've got to root it out for the sake of our country before we leave erin are you still the youngest member of congress well i'm not i'm still the youngest republican but after four years of being the youngest member of congress a new member from palm beach florida on the democratic side of the aisle was elected and so he's now the youngest member of congress and i'm glad to give him that title thanks. very much good to be with you larry and you know you're proven age is nothing you can do anything. thanks to our guest congressman aaron schock coming up democratic political strategist peter fenn and every managing editor of politico rachel spoken with. the. it was quite

good news if you've never seen anything like that on cold. war. in. iraq. the boy.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for like you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. wealthy british style. the title. market why not. come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy

with mikes cars are run no holds barred look at the global fund. headlines tune into kinds of reports and. joining us now is democrat peter fenn he's the strategist head of ten communications teeters one of the nation's leading political and public affairs experts and that firm was quite successful in that and then read so small can the deputy managing editor of the for politico that's the nation's leading political website i think they both heard from our congressman friends also with you peter what do you think of his thoughts that mr snowden is a traitor well i think there's no question that that he probably violated the law by releasing. what he did but i'll tell you something larry i am extraordinarily concerned about the collection of material on american citizens one of my first jobs in this town was to work on the frank church committee the

so-called church intelligence committee i was assigned to n.s.a. we were concerned then the vacuum cleaner effect the agreements that they had with western union and that time i t n t to swoop up and collect information on american citizens we tried to stop but they had watch lists with with names of an i war protestors what i fear now is that technology is run amok and i am very concerned. about this whole program in the future than it portends right ratio is is snowden a hero or trade away do you stand on this philosophical arguments privacy versus security larry passionate views on both sides obviously they're interesting split that we're seeing is that the establishment is really lining up behind a point of view that he is a traitor that he's no hero he shouldn't have done what he did and then what we're

seeing are very strong. only held beliefs on both the right and the left sides of the political spectrum that do see him as hero feel that they government's privacy invasions have run amok that he played a very important role in reopening the debate about privacy in this country some of what we were just hearing here today but certainly from the establishment both democrats and republicans condemning him very strongly where do you think it's going to go rachel what's how is obama handling it what's your overview so far he's handling it by saying nothing about it very striking silence he weighed in of course on the national security leaks themselves late last week and said he welcomed the debate on this issue that was before edward snowden emerged and said that he was the leak since that time the white house has said nothing and jay carney was asked about this many times today and did not engage on the issue of course we're going to be facing a potential prosecution for snowden here look for

a charges to come on that so the president and his administration have to be very careful about what they do say on this issue peter do they want good tight rope oh i think they do lie i think it's very difficult for this president he came into office he's very concerned about individual rights he's very concerned about the personal freedoms of americans he was very concerned about the overreach. dick cheney in the bush administration when they weren't even going for warrants when they were going after american citizens and and so he was trying to bring this back in but you know every president larry and every person in this town gets sucked in to to to this kind of secrecy and intelligence and when these folks in around these tables and tell you we've got to have it we've got to do it we're going to spend two billion dollars on a place in utah and we're going to collect all this information we've got to have it we've got to have it we can't have another nine eleven then you see this stuff

the president's moves and i really worry about it because. i just think that we're we're heading in the wrong direction but what about those rachel who say that maybe if we had this kind of stuff before nine eleven there wouldn't have been a nine eleven. it's hard to know whether there would or wouldn't have been a nine eleven i mean going back in history of us not a leg that is a very difficult thing to do and there have been a lot of changes in our sharing of classified information since nine eleven that's one of the things that makes us vulnerable to these kinds of leaks one of the problems before nine eleven was there is not enough information sharing among people who had different pieces of information but could not access and have to really put that the tapestry together so there's been a push to share much more information now possibly we'll review some of those procedures they'll be certainly questions raised about the number of defense contractors who don't work for the government but do have these top level security

clearances i don't expect to see a lot of changes a lot of substantive changes in the actual surveillance not unless the politics on this issue shift a lot i think we may just see some changes at the margins some tinkering with the amount of oversight that congress has but certainly they'll be a robust debate about the defense contractors maybe not a big change because we are so reliant on them but expect to hear a lot more on that particular issue peter the pew research in washington post poll sixty two percent of americans indicate they are willing to give up some personal privacy to protect against terrorism what's your reaction to the well you know one of the things that concern me a lot larry is that talk to a lot of young people work for me folks i teach here at george washington and a lot of people tell me they don't really have much expectation of privacy anymore they assume that their e-mails are out there or they assume that their cell phone calls are out there they assume that everybody who wants to find out about. every

part of their lives can that their credit cards are are there and you know to me that's a rather scary thing because i think when you have the government in a position where it can collect all lat that that it. and then urge but i think there is no question that this poll shows that people are more concerned about security and going after terrorists than than they are right now about their own personal. privacy and then what will happen i think is if there are situations where peoples who are innocent who find that their phones are being monitored that their travel is being monitored that folks know where they are and what they're doing that you have a nine hundred eighty four situation and by the way there's a new book is now selling like hotcakes identity. radios switching is rachel politico's always on top of everything always going to

get an immigration reform bill certainly congress is trying the senate is just starting to debate that issue we've seen it go through committee now we get to the really difficult part is going to be on the senate floor you're going to hear a lot of talk about border security over the next couple of weeks the gang of eight that so-called gang of eight that's been so instrumental is pushing to try to get more republican support they want to reach not just sixty but seventy votes to try to send a strong signal over to the house where you know how gridlocked washington is these days that is not an easy number to reach that's a big bipartisan number so that's their goal that's what they'll be working toward it sounds like they're going to get to that sixty vote threshold most likely seventy is a different matter that will be a tougher hurdle and then there's a question even if they do send a strong message to the house what the house does in response they would they're really struggled on the house side they haven't been able to get i think remain together of the same kind and power that they do on the senate side they're going

to keep working on that house speaker john boehner has said he wants a bill that will be a big test of his leadership to see what can come out of the house side the worry one do reagan was for one bush was for one. ominous for it it seems bipartisan the gum the pins of a happen on this the election really changed things or remember there was not momentum on this issue before president obama was reelected with big numbers of hispanic supporters so that really shook up the republican party and many of the party leaders now feel strongly that they do need to get an immigration bill but not every member of the republican party feels that way there's still going to be a lot of conservative opposition especially among house members who represent a strike where people don't want to see that don't want to see a bill that they consider they view to be amnesty or don't want to see a bill that they think is not strong enough on border security so even though we're hearing a lot nationally from the party leaders about how they want this they wanted deal

to happen there's still going to be a fair amount of resistance to putting this through politics being what it is in some remaining moments the obvious is you think hillary is going to run i think the odds are pretty good she's on twitter now larry and she got sixty five thousand followers in about eight hours so you know i think of her health is fine and. she she has a chance to recharge your batteries which she seems to be doing. i suspect that she will run who would challenge or you know the democrats are you know i might talk about joe biden and i think joe's a great guy and i've known him for years and i've been to be a great president but i find it hard to believe that joe would challenge or yours sitting vice president it's a year and a half if you have a primary situation that makes things really awkward for obama and for the obama

administration so my sense of it is. that there are other people looking at it but and they might decide to throw their hats in the ring but but hillary is no question about it the favorite if she decides to do it and rachel what. is he on the other side who do you think is going to forge forth among the republicans or are we going to have sixteen running again so we could have another clinton bush to match up that would be very interesting we'll see of jeb bush getting into it but fun to watch senator marco rubio who is the pivotal member in the senate a very important member of that gang of eight is someone who is looked at as a possible contender obviously the way immigration reform plays out could say a lot about his chances most second terms prove troublesome peter how do you think obama's legacy is going to run well you know i think it's actually going to run out fairly well i i think this i.r.s.

thing is a tempest in a teapot i think it's going nowhere i think ben guys he's not going to be that important to him i think the key thing here larry is the economy and i think that is that you hear the republicans talk about this other stuff to want to talk about the economy they don't want to talk about how it's getting better and how he made the right decisions on the auto bailout me made the right decisions. and put money into the economy and saving. our businesses back at the beginning which they all run right held against so i think you've got a situation where by the next election and certainly by the end of his term the economy will be on the upswing and people will say you know the republicans didn't support this stuff but it worked and it's because of barack obama's leadership that this economy came back thank you both very much nice talking with the red zone for that one we're in washington wonderful he'd a good talking with you going to you i guess have been with us in washington we're

in los angeles and we thank peter fenn and rachel smokin that ends our first edition of politics and remember you can find me on twitter at kings things on margy studios in l.a. thanks for joining us. oh oh. download the official publication to yourself choose your language stream quality and enjoy your favorites from alzheimer's if you're away from your television just doesn't work so now with your mobile device you can watch on t.v.

anytime anywhere. the for. the so.

you live on one hundred thirty three bucks a month for food i should try it because you know how fabulous bad luck i got so. i mean the town i believe that i'm sitting seems really messed up. and we're all very so close look at the. worst you're going to fly down six of a day a radio guy and pull up a zero minestrone quick profit on what a large cloak we're about to do because you've never seen anything like this. i'm told. i'm having martin and this is in the set good news guys it is a prime court unanimously ruled.